You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Tips for Making Solo Arrangements

Episode Date: December 24, 2020

It's another live edition of You'll Hear It where Peter and Adam take your questions. On this episode, Peter and Adam discuss making solo arrangements on tunes where the melody notes don't fit the chords.Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Links From This Episode:Get the official Open Studio Practice Journal mentioned in this episode by following this link!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jeff has a good question up here. Any tips for making solo arrangements when there are melody notes? How far up are we? Pretty fairly far up, maybe halfway up. Jeff, the name, Jeff? I don't see Jeff. G-E-O-F. It's between a couple of Pick and Stone and Joe Miscara comments up here.

I wonder if this is our friend, Jeff. Any tips on making solo arrangements when there are melody notes that don't fit the chords? Yeah. Thinking intro to tell me a bedtime story or second to last bar of black narcissists. How does that not melody? Oh, okay. So this, the beginning to, um. A little cordy, put a little cordy up on there now.

A little cordy? Little cordy's not going to kill him. Kill him, right? Okay, so G major, right? This is an interesting thing because I never thought this was really outside of the court because of how it lies melodically. Yeah. Let me take that off.

And then we can see. Okay. But I guess, you know, that's, that's a, oh yeah, see, GNC. No, chord. We're going to go buy some supplements. Cordy doesn't know. So look at the shape. This is my recommendation.

Look at the shape. I just got that G-inty. Look at the shape of the melody, not just the shape of the chord. Of course, we could go G-major 13, sharp 11. We could go G-major 9, G-major 9, you know, sharp 11. But then the melody, that's an A-major over G is what's happening here,

which is very much, that's what Lidian is, right? So it gives you that major, 7, we always think about the C-sharp as being what makes it Lydian, and that's true, but because we're talking A major, Major 7 is part of it too, and the way it flows... Gorgeous. Yeah, the way it flows in the melody, and this is what's so great about Herbie. He's never in a box kind of guy. Can't be.

I think somebody tried to put him in a box one and he refused to go. So, the shape of the melody, so when you're improvising, as long as you use it as part of a shape of A major, that's right, duality of G major and A major, it doesn't sound like it doesn't fit. Now, if you try to be like, and you know, actually that kind of works you. It all, yeah.

Well, that's thinking, depending on the context and if you know what you're doing, it's going to work. We've been working over on the daily guide of practice session at these red garland spread voicings, something like this. So check out this voicing.

Because he famously would do octaves and then put a perfect fifth in there. So if you're on A, he would play the E natural, even if it's an F7 chord. That doesn't sound bad. That sounds actually nice and crunchy. I've always heard that sound.

I never thought about that. That's what it is, man. Wait, hold that down so we can see it into Cordy. Okay, so you got... Yeah, that's exactly what I was hearing it is. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Come on, Cordy.

Don't say FNC. Say F-R-G. So, yeah, but so... F-R-R-R-G... So if we do a little bit of a... Give me a little F-B blues bass line here. One, two, three, and... So we could just do typical spread voicings here.

But there's always a point where, like, in any of these major scales, happens on the third on domino chords that has an e natural right there but it works great anyway there's sometimes it doesn't work

like if you're doing like a melody that has a very long held long held note that's really important and that fifth is really crunching like there's a point in autumn leaves where it's like no bueno no point so you could change it to that

but there's somewhere they just like oh that's the regular garland sound. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay, yeah. So and it's always like, you know, for the, so what we both both just talk about is two different kind of things, but it's like two sides of the same coin. Yeah. This is from a voicing standpoint where very much like how the intervals are set

up and like how the so-called non-core tone is embedded affects whether or not it can work. Because if you take an F7 and you put that, you stack up thirds where the expectation is, but you go major third, that's not going to work. But that shouldn't work because it's really the same thing, but it works. Well, it's because of the intervals on top. Yeah, someone pointed out that, you know, it is part of the overtone series that if you play an E, or sorry, if you play an A natural, E is right there in the overtone series, even just a.

So it's kind of there anyway. Right. You're just kind of doubling it up a little bit. I think it's beautiful, man. I really do think it's gorgeous. And you can't get that sound unless you go against the grain. And so it's the same way with the Herbie thing, though. So even though you're like, and the way that melody flows, too, it makes perfect sense.

It would sound so terrible if it was. That would sound terrible. That would be like your boy from Austria. Yeah, Hans Groiner. Hans Groiner. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. Hans Groin is hilarious and big shout out to Larry Goldings.

but that's there's a really important thing in there is like how do we think about hearing music holistically so whenever we tap into these primal elements of how harmony and melody are connected like triads like major scales

like any of the modes you know that's a very powerful thing because that's like tapping into history like history of what people hear and so and we can almost play that over anything Like, just name a random chord for me. A7 flat 9. A7.

Yeah, the way that melody works. No, you know what? So we've been talking a lot about melodic minor harmony, too, over the years. Yeah. Right, so let's say we have G melodic minor. And you've always noted, and I've always known this is true, music theory-wise, that's melodic minor ascending, because in a classical music context, you would come down this scale in a natural minor, right?

Yeah. And I swear that the older I get, the more I understand why this works so well. It's really because what we're doing here is pointing towards the fifth. Yep. So that does not sound as good as... And this is another case here. Check it out. So I can play this chord.

A G minor major over... right with a with i'll have a natural six and a major seven in this chord that does not sound bad at all no sounds dare i say delightful doesn't sound outside of the harmony not even a little bit yeah yeah i mean it's just like you know if if there's a movie that's really well done you can have two conversations as long as they're kind of there's something

that either centers both of them so strongly or some kind of like very slightly coherent connection between them in which both these conversations are happening at the same time and then like the way that the balance is mixed with the sound and everything that's such a cool thing I mean like movies don't have to always be like

dialogue right looking at the camera hello you know you have these different things going on I think it's very much the same thing with voicing with using our two hands with and even beyond three parts you know it's the same thing like if you look at you know three part fugues four part fugues those kind of things

um contrapuntal playing, getting several different things. I mean, the human ear has the ability to really hear and digest quite a bit, but it has to be laid out

in a way that has some kind of organization. It doesn't have to be totally what you expect or logical, and it shouldn't. And someone's asking this question, I'd like to connect this in with this, about do your musical imaginations entail any images or is it pure audiation?

And if so, how tight are these images to the piano keyboard versus Salvador Dahl. and stuff. So I think that this is an area, I don't necessarily like, you know,

say look at Salvador Dali painting and be like, I'm going to make, I'm going to create a musical inspiration directly on that, the shape of that or whatever. But talking about going out of nature and stuff and observing things,

nature is so beautiful and pristine, just like Salvador Dali's work or any artist that's inspired by nature, which I think is all artists, all great art. Totally. In some way. But it's not perfect from the sense of like, if you take a ruler to it, you know, everything is exactly like some of the beauty is like the way that the leaves overlap on a tree.

It's perfectly symmetrical. And then when you look closer, it's not perfectly symmetrical. But it gives you the feeling of it. So I think that as we compose and as we improvise and as we play things like things that probably shouldn't work, but we play them in a way. And by not work, I mean not work as seamlessly as it is. I remember having trouble. I think that's such a beautiful opening. Like I had trouble transcribing this when I first learned it

Because I was like It doesn't make any sense Yeah I'm like wait I was just like what is that chord So I think I wrote down like A over G It's not wrong It's not wrong that's true But then sometimes like we get boxed in by

Nomenclature or like how we're gonna write something And whatever and it doesn't matter It's a sound, it's a vibe The same way like wind coming up on you You gives you a feeling of something You don't have to get out and measure it The PSI of it and all that kind of stuff Yeah and not to mention

Just one more thing. We spend a lot of time on this, but I think it's an important thing. It's our show, damn it? Yeah. Oh, sorry. There's no, and especially Herbie is not thinking like, there's a box that this harmony has to be in.

Right. And there's a scale that goes with this chord. Right. It's all about individual voices working together. Yeah. And if you can figure out a way to get things that don't typically work together. Sounds great.

Yeah. Then that's making music, and there's no rules to break, really. It's just all about individual voices. Harmony is an illusion. actually. Right. It's a false construct we could almost say, right? Well, it's not, yeah, there's nothing

false about it, but it's not it is something that is to be digested after the fact. The fact that we learn music mostly from these lead sheets that are very harmony focused, right? It can be a bit of a detriment. So I actually encourage people, some

of my students who I think are in a good space for this, and this might be our man here. What was our dude's name who suggested this? duamba yeah so like go check out some old sheet music some old copyrighted sheet music

and see the way that if you try to put chord changes on it it's just going to be a big mess you know what it is is a bunch of individual voices moving with some of these like piano arrangements that are done really really well and you could take a tune that you know really really well and see a piano arrangement from trying to get something from back in the day from some of these good like tin pan alley

arrangers and you could see some harmonic or even just you know what you can find like gershwin's own or Irving Berlin's own arrangements of this stuff and see how they thought of the melody and harmony and you're going to see that it's to sketch out a chord change is nuts. Right. You know, it's all about the melody and what

the harmony does under it is depending on the melody. Totally agree. This is what, I'm not even going to say totally agree anymore. I'm just going to do this. Oh, that didn't Wow. Oh, they could hear it. That was clapping effect, but we can't hear it. We're going to talk about that. That's what that's going to solve. That's what I just remember it. Totally. Totally. Totally. I was

giving you some clapping so oh thank you cool no this this kind of stuff i love um i kind of like geeking out on this sort of approach to music more than even like what is that chord exactly at what scale goes with that because this gets into an area of like possibilities really for music absolutely and i always want to encourage everybody don't i mean i know a lot of times we can be very dogmatic about practice this and and i believe in all that these are not um these are not diametrically opposed concepts. These all work together. It's very much like there's a time for dogmatic practice.

There's a time for like really mastering fingering of scales and learning this. You know, some people take this as an excuse to be like, oh, cool, I can just feel it and just play random shiz it, you know? Yeah. And that is not the way to go. But when you take this in combination with a very disciplined, you know, perhaps Pujo inspired approach. Oh, the Pujo. Come on now. Come on. Um, so we, oh, that could be like

Poojo Poojo Poojo Poojo Poojo Poojo What am I doing? That'd be the Pujo theme song. But yeah, we can take this a little bit more discipline practice and then with the imagination

of that practice performing and these kind of things, let that guide us and let as our ear training really starts to get advanced and very excited for when your forthcoming ear training course comes along because I think that's going to be a real game changer

for people that are like, I want to get my ears better, but how do I do it? I'm listening all the time. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, I want to be a better painter and I look at Salvador Dali websites all the time. How come I'm not getting better? There's got to be a connection and a continuum beyond just being an appreciator of something and then turning that into nuts and bolts of stretching yourself, building up the muscles that are necessary for that skills.

Yeah, that's why when we start in ear training, we start with intervals and not full on cores, then you kind of, you know, break out and, and go higher and higher and higher, higher up. So you're looking at it from the moon. Talk about intervals. Talk about intervals. Put up with that. So.

Alejandro down here near the bottom asks, can you talk about some use of the Ogg chord, which is kind of why I was hinting at this, because that's a great way. That's a great use of the augmented chord. Augmented chord. Okay, so talk about some uses of the Ogg chord. It's a dominant chord, really.

Yeah. That's a little Richard or something. So, I mean, the thing, the way to use this, Alejandro is a dominant, right? And why we use this as a five chord so often going somewhere is here's B-flat augmented.

If you look at the top two notes, you're D and F-sharp, where are they going? Where are these notes going? Yep. Oh, yeah, you can go either way, yeah. Which makes it even a stronger kind of dominant leading situation, right?

So it's a great, and it's not often used in, in modern contest but you hear it all the time in like pre-rock and roll music hear it a lot of Christmas radio stations right yeah exactly no it's a great

chord man you can also use it as like a coming right before that right oh yeah yeah but check this out something like this too could be like C minor over B but this also could be like a B augmented when you get rid of that 11 I mean the ninth right yeah exactly

another use for it, but really it shines, I think, the most as a dominant chord leading to a one. Yeah. And I think one thing to think about both from a theoretical standpoint and from actual practical usage with this is to make a difference between, well, we'll take that one. So G augmented. If you have, oh, I'm looking to see what chord he says. Okay, that's actually cool. when you've got the D and I mean, I love this sound

and use that all the time, but that's not really an augmented sound. It's a different kind of sound because the fifth, this is a flat 13 in this situation. It's not a raised fifth. You know why?

Why? Because you've got the fifth. You can't really have the fifth and the raised fifth from a theoretical standpoint and even from a practical standpoint in that where it would resolve. So if we have that,

we right? Right? Right. Yeah, so it's more likely to go there. Now, could we find other ways to subvert that? Yeah, probably. But at a minimum, it's kind of good to understand the difference between those and what they sound like and where you could use them.

So a strictly augmented is a lot easier to go there than, and that can lead to some weaker voicing if you don't understand the difference between those. Yeah. It's a very specific sound. I mean, you think about the difference between like that and that or, to your point, Yeah. And I think, too, you know, this is one of those sounds that getting kind of a continuum going, you know, I mean, unless you're doing it kind of like Phelonis Monk is like a very specific, you know. That's its own thing though.

Like a whole tone scale. It's a whole tone thing. Yeah. That's like going. But that's really just a combination of a bunch of, you know, augmented triads is really what it is. But if we think about it from the stamp, what was I going to say? Oh, that's right. So if we go G7, G13, G,

no, that's more of a flat 13, forget it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. So the continuum of it is when it's becoming a flat 13. That's going to lead you to that kind of sign, where it's like Suss, you know, D flat over G, 13, flat 13. A lot of people will be like, oh, that's augmented. And it could be, but it's more likely altered, right?

So that's a variation on it, a variant, really, but a little bit different. Whereas the straight augmented, and the ninth, I think, is very important. Even if you don't play it in the voicing, but you kind of play around with it, yeah, as opposed to the flat nine and the sharp nine, because that's what really leads you into altered territory, right?

Which is fun and which is great, but that's not what this is. And the same thing with the Sharp 11. Bam. Bam. That's what we're talking about. stuff. You got some discussion here about the ear training that I've been doing in the daily

got a practice session. Before we get to that, I just want to say one thing, which is how can I get a how? No, I want to just say, if you're getting some value or you're being entertained by this, how about giving us a like, maybe even a subscribe to this channel? I know a lot of you are probably subscribing, but if you like chatter, information, got to get sublimation, going to get all up in. If you're enjoying this, basically, is what I'm trying to say, Pat, you know, assuage our egos. Aswage, a swage.

Stroke our egos. And give us a like and a thumbs up that would be. And you know what? Subscribe to the channel. Maybe even turn on the bell notification so that when we go live, you'll be right there with us. How's that sound? That sounds great. And you guys are welcome to drop our longtime friends.

You're welcome to drop what you think about this channel. Maybe there's some lurkers here that are like, I don't know if I can. commit to subscribing to this channel, but you can let them know. You can do it. Go ahead, guys. There's happy times here. So Joe was asking about the ear training.

It is in the daily get to practice session. We've been doing it sort of at the beginning of the session after our warm up every day. But I've kind of decided that I'm going to make a course out of what we've been doing, Joe. So it's going to be this kind of 35-minute session course. And then I'm probably going to do just a live thing on Open Studio Pro for ear training. 35 minutes of Adam talking to you That's what I love that 35 minutes

And he's gonna tell you what to do To train your ears Is someone recording this Can I get this for the theme song 35 minutes That's all you need BAM Awkward silence

All right, what are the questions we got? We got about four more minutes. And then how about this one from Nathaniel? I don't know if this is a four minute one. What's up, Nathaniel? Can you guys talk about minor six chords and their use as a substitute dominant or a secondary dominant? Minor six chords. Like substitute dominant for what?

Oh. Maybe that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so that's, we were talking about drawing. on like really primal sort of sounds that's 5-1 in terms of root movement whenever you like come across something you're like why does that work why does that not work one thing that you might

want to put into your kind of arsenal of of thought process is triads scales 5-1 movements 2-5-1 movements 1-6 2 like anything that is like very structurally primal or potentially so so like not necessarily to play it that way but to understand why it is why it it works like it does. So if we look at C minor and then you look at F7, what's the connection there? Yeah, C minor,

six is very either Dorian or melodic minor ascending-esque, we would say, right? Yeah. And so then the F7 in terms of diatonic, if you put the F in the root, same thing, it's either dominant,

which would be the same as the C-Dorian or Lidian-dominate. But it's always interesting how they diverge if you're going to use them together. So like, C minor 7, should I get some cordy going? Can a brother get some cordy? So that's a lot more of an obvious thing.

Whereas C minor, that's C minor 7 to F7. Whereas C minor 6, nothing's changing, right? Because we don't have that. We're just we, we, did did de, did da. But I think it works nicely when you go to the ninth. So I don't remember the question. It was about minus six. It was about minor six chords as secondary dominance or...

There it is. Bam, bam, bam. Substitute dominant or secondary dominant. So let's think about it from that. That's sub-solving for the dominant. What would be the secondary dominant? You could also use it as like if you're in C minor. Like, you know, you can use an F minor 6, the four chord.

It really acts more of a dominant chord than, I think a normal plagal cadence could because of that movement of those two notes Yep Now let's talk about something right here That was So what you're hearing Adam play there

Yeah this is kind of what he's talking about The four minor So he's talking about four minor six to major Yeah Yeah so these are things that like you might say, okay, well, that's so basic what you guys are playing, you've never actually play that. But these are the kinds of things that I think that we do here.

Like, and I know you're really good at this, Adam. I'll see you doing this, like, to really understand these things, you break it down into just almost, these are almost like the shells, like the classical shell in a way, like the actual, you know. And what the difference of those is is very important so that when you play, you know, some fancy stuff that's based upon that. that we're not, I'm not playing, you know, I'm not playing those very root position specific voicings, but I'm hearing them. No, if I'm doing that, if I'm imposing that F minor 6 to a C major 7, I'm doing something like that.

And maybe it's over a regular 2.5, so the bass player. So now you get this sound, right? Yeah. Almost a Frigian. Are we frigging? Oh, you know another nice place that goes? So we got, that's like the straight F minor. You're going. I know where you're going. Go for it.

Hey. Our time is coming to an end. You'll hear it podcast, 2021. He likes to bend the tones, because it's the Hammer Radio. Makes me want to go. Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. We're here every Monday for some reason, playing for you, taking your questions. We'll be back next Monday at

4 p.m. Eastern time. Thanks for joining us here on the Hill Here We'll Hear a podcast. Shout out to our producer, Andrew. Shout out to the pod suite. Our associate producer, Peter Martin. And second, our executive producer. Adam Annis. Our craft services, Peter Martin. Our driver, Peter Martin. CEO, Peter Martin. That's how we do it. All right. Cool. Later, y'all. See you.